


A Handle on a Snowball

by kosame



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-06
Updated: 2009-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:04:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosame/pseuds/kosame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since Nino won't tell him who he's going out with, Sho takes it upon himself to guess. It doesn't go well, as you may imagine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Handle on a Snowball

**Author's Note:**

> For uh, myself?, who requested "Nino and Jun have been sleeping together for years and nobody noticed until just now." I thought up the idea a while ago and have been waiting for an anonymeme, but then I had an idea of how I wanted to write it. ...Before going back to find two other people had written it for me. The three of them actually go in pretty different directions, so... Posted to the 2009 New Year's Anonnymeme [here](http://happygaynewyear.livejournal.com/579.html?thread=280387#t280387).

It wasn't that Sho didn't trust Nino, he was just worried. And maybe also a little insecure. But mostly worried.

Sho had been Nino's romantic confidant for basically as long as they'd been friends, which was a longer period of time than Sho cared to think about. He had listened to Nino ramble on about the cute girl he just met and had talked him through tough break-ups. He was also one of the very few, or maybe the only person that knew about Nino's tendency to ramble on about the cute boy he just met, too. It was why he was worried when he hadn't heard a peep out of Nino on that front in an abnormally long time; either he didn't want to talk to Sho anymore, or he was dating someone he didn't want Sho to know about.

To that end, he had screwed up his courage and confronted Nino about it.

"Don't be that way, Sho-chan," Nino was saying. "I promise I still love you a whole lot."

"So then you're dating someone you don't want me to know about."

"How do you know I'm not still single?"

"You go on imaginary dates with random people you see walking around. I think I would have heard about one of them by now if you weren't thinking about someone else."

"You got me," Nino said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Yes, I am dating somebody. No, I won't tell you who it is. The other party doesn't want anyone to know we're dating either."

"And if you get caught? How big of a scandal would that be?"

Nino let out a deep breath. "I don't even want to think about how horrible it would be. But don't worry Sho-chan, we won't get caught!"

"Easy for you to say."

"No, really, we won't," Nino said, giving Sho a hug as he was prone to do, being so incredibly touchy--

"It's not Leader, is it?" Sho asked, suddenly realizing what Nino probably meant.

Nino laughed. "No. You know my love for Oh-chan is as pure and innocent as freshly fallen snow."

"I do?"

"Stop worrying so much," Nino said, giving Sho's shoulders one last squeeze before leaving the green room.

* * *

A couple of weeks went by, but the uncertainty gnawed at the back of Sho's mind until he couldn't take it anymore. "Who is it?" he whined at Nino, hoping that the loss of his dignity would make his friend take pity on him.

"Not telling," Nino said, not even bothering to stop.

"I won't tell anyone, I promise. Why don't you want me to know?" Nino ignored him. "Are you embarrassed of him?"

"I am _not_ embarrassed of him."

"So it is a him."

"Shut up," Nino retorted intelligently.

"And what do you do if this ends badly and he exposes your gay sex life?"

"Aside from the fact that he _wouldn't_ , he'd be exposed to the same gay sex scandal."

"So it's someone else famous?"

"Sho."

"I know, it's just, I don't know anything about him, and I'm worried about you, and you would really set my mind at ease if you would just tell me who."

Nino met Sho's pleading eyes evenly, the "no" written clearly in his expression.

"What if I guess?"

"Then you'll just go through everyone I know at random."

"No, I won't. I promise. I'll guess no more than one person a day. Okay?" Nino looked like maybe he was going to give in, so Sho gave him his best smile. "Okay?"

"Fine, I won't lie to you. But you better have a reason for every single person you guess."

* * *

The more Sho thought, the more he realized it could literally be anyone Nino knew, because he didn't have a good reason for or against anyone. There were people they'd worked with on variety shows and people Nino had acted with (and Sho knew firsthand how Nino was with his costars). He was still close with a lot of them, including-- Sho groaned when the thought occurred to him. "Please tell me it's not a kouhai."

"Some of our kouhai are older than me," Nino pointed out.

Sho couldn't stop the image of Yokoyama that came to mind and prayed fervently that it was not him.

"The real age difference is with our sempai," Nino went on, and Sho knew he was doing it to get back at Sho for being so nosy. "Just think, if it was, he and the 'responsible' member of his group might be having this exact same conversation right now."

Somehow that translated in his mind to Matsuoka-kun sitting down all of TOKIO and lecturing them about dating kouhai. "In the interest of the mental image I _really_ wish I wasn't having right now, which member of TOKIO would you date, if it were one of them, which I sincerely hope it is not?"

"Well, I don't know. I mean, I go out with Taichi-kun a lot, but I also did that whole drama with Nagase-kun. And Matsu-nii is so fun and Yamaguchi-kun has all those muscles he never puts sleeves over."

"He's married," Sho whimpered.

"And you know my thing for Leaders."

"I thought that was pure and innocent."

"For _our_ leader. I mean, have you _seen_ Sakamoto-kun?"

Sho tried to bury himself under the couch cushions. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Nino laughed. "Don't worry, it's not a sempai. We're practically the same age."

Sho didn't venture a guess for a whole week.

* * *

Sho was still mulling over how "practically" was "practically," when he opened the greenroom door to find Aiba hanging all over Nino, giving him tips on how to beat whatever game it was Nino was absorbed in, and Nino apparently mostly ignoring him.

Nino and Aiba were only 6 months apart.

"I'm willing to trade my guess for piece of mind," Sho began after practice. "It's not Masaki, right?"

Nino's facial expression gave him away, but he tried valiantly to stick to the rules anyway, "And your reason is?"

"You've known each other forever and you're extremely close and I just really need to know it's not him because the two of you set enough things on fire as it is."

"It's not him," Nino said, giving in to his burst of laughter. "Although, I won't say it was never him."

"Nino," Sho said in a plea for him to be serious, but Nino's expression didn't change. "Nino. I'm serious, please."

Nino just kept laughing.

* * *

"Do you think MatsuJun is dating someone?" Aiba asked Sho as Sho was nursing a headache from very pointedly not thinking about Nino and Aiba in an unholy union.

Sho groaned. "I can't think about that right now Masaki."

"Man, you look beat."

"You never dated Nino, right?" Aiba sort of grinned at him. "Please tell me you never dated Nino."

"Okay. I never dated Nino."

"Masaki."

Aiba just kept grinning, and Sho's headache got worse.

* * *

"Oguri Shun," Sho said without preamble. "Maybe that time you went drinking with him and Jun, you remembered how well you got along."

"Nope," Nino said. Sho could tell he loved this guessing game, how he was so sure Sho was never going to guess.

Sho thought he might be right.

* * *

The cell phone stared at Sho. Sho stared back.

He knew it would be an invasion of privacy, but Nino left it out there on the table in the middle of the room and Sho was getting kind of desperate, having run through most of Nino's costars in the past few weeks. He didn't even want to imagine it was some random guest from an episode of Shukudai-kun or something, because then he really would never get it. He really wanted to check Nino's phone.

He lost the battle with himself fairly quickly, but he's never been good at willpower. The background was just that candid picture of Jun he took two weeks ago and then proceeded to send to all of their mutual acquaintances, and his calls were mostly to members or sempai. Figured.

* * *

"No, seriously, I know this person, right?" Sho asked a month later.

"You do," Nino said.

"So then why--?" Sho broke off, frustrated with himself. "I've even been, like, spying on you, and I can't figure it out."

"I noticed," Nino said darkly. "But I told you beforehand you wouldn't get it."

Sho leant back and stared at the ceiling. "If I knew who he was, would I approve of him?"

"You would trust him, I promise." Nino said, scooting closer to Sho. "So, does that mean you're giving up?"

"I'm giving up." Sho sighed. "Make sure he takes care of you."

"He does. Thank you for being so concerned, even if I wish you weren't."

Sho shrugged.

* * *

Sho noticed Aiba looked troubled the next day. "What's up?"

"I told you," Aiba said, "MatsuJun is being all moody and secretive about his personal life. More than usual, I mean."

Sho tried to remember Aiba telling him this and felt vaguely guilty he couldn't. He hoped Aiba would go on.

"I mean, it's been _weeks_ since I said that thing about the stylist, he should just forgive me already."

"Maybe if you didn't bring it up every few days he would."

"I-- How did you know?"

"You do it with everything, Masaki," Sho said, turning his attention mostly to the newspaper. "What'd you say to him, anyway?"

"I just said how he should just ask the girl out if he was going to get so upset over her and Nino flirting."

Sho nodded. He knew the stylist in question was pretty and funny and willing to argue with him, which seemed to be Jun's type. "Wait, what?" Sho said, going back over the past few months. If it was a snake it would have bit him.

* * *

"Can I have one more guess?"

"I thought we were stopping this, Sho-chan," Nino whined, but he paused the DS anyway.

"He's famous and almost exactly your age and we both know him. You're not overly touchy with him so that he'd spring to mind, but he's not someone you aren't affectionate with either, so you still have plausible deniability. If anyone even thought you could be going out, because for some reason a lot of people think you don't like each other."

"I thought the game was over, Sho." Nino's eyes were serious, but Sho went on.

"But you guys do like each other, a lot, and you've known each other forever. He's someone I would trust to take care of you, who I know does take care of you. But--"

"Okay, fine, yes," Nino snapped. " _Yes_. But we're being careful; you know that, I kept you fooled until now. And we're not going to let it affect Arashi, okay? I don't want a lecture about it."

"...I was just going to say, 'but he doesn't fit in with your leader thing'."

"Oh." Nino looked at his hands. "Sorry."

Sho sat down on the couch beside him. "Anyway, I thought you should know, Masaki is on your guys' trail. You should stop flirting with the stylist."

"But he's so funny when he gets mad like that," Nino said, burrowing into Sho's side. Sho knew he couldn't see the look, but he gave it anyway, and was rewarded a few seconds later with a sigh and an "okay, I'll stop."

"Do you think I should tell Jun I know?"

"Nah, I'll tell him," Nino said. "But you know..."

"Hm?"

"Now that you know, I can totally whine to you about him. And since you're the only one, Jun might want to whine to you too."

Sho groaned. Nino grinned.


End file.
